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In situ-derived boron-doped graphene quantum dots can significantly improve the activity of boron carbide nanosheets for artificial N2 fixation and reduction with superior electrocatalytic activity (NH3 yield: 28.6 μg h−1 mgcat.−1 at −0.45 V vs. RHE; faradaic efficiency: 16.7%), high electrochemical stability, and high selectivity in 0.1 M HCl under ambient conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the ionic transport behaviour as well as temperature change caused by the Joule heating effect is important for the application of plasmonic nanopores. To explore the basic properties of ionic transport through nanopores, we assemble gold nanoparticles on the tip of a glass nanopipette to form a hydrophilic gold porous structure (hydro-GPS) that exhibits high Raman activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon coated K0.8Ti1.73Li0.27O4 (KTLO) has been synthesized by a facile flux method followed by ball-milling and gaseous carbon coating. The carbon coated KTLO delivers a reversible specific capacity of 119.6 mA h g−1 at 20 mA g−1 with no capacity loss after 250 cycles as an anode material in sodium ion batteries, exhibiting an improved rate capability of 66 mA h g−1 at 200 mA g−1. It was found that carbon coating of KTLO not only enhances its electronic conductivity, but also improves the structure stability, proving that the carbon coated KTLO is a promising anode material for sodium ion batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a strategy to control directly the orientation of hemin plane via experimental models, Hemin-His model and Hemin-MHN model with ODT. Electrochemical results show that electron communication is largely enhanced when the hemin plane is near to parallel to the electrode surface by histidine ligation in Hemin-His model, while the electron transport of hemin in Hemin-MHN model with ODT becomes relatively difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wavy palladium (Pd) nanorods were obtained by controlled synthesis by using amine--boranes as the reducing agents. Thanks to the unique structure and strong interaction with graphene, the as-synthesized Pd nanorods supported on graphene exhibit much enhanced electrocatalytic activity towards formic acid oxidation as compared with Pd nanoparticles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spectral shift of localized plasmon resonance scattering of guanine-rich DNA modified single Au nanoparticles is observed under a dark field microscope equipped with a spectrometer. The spectra continuously redshift with the conformational change of the guanine-rich DNA upon associating with K+, hemin and the biocatalytic growth of the polymer. The scattering spectrum of single nanoparticles is proved to be sensitive both to a subtle conformational change and the biocatalysis process. 20 mM K+ or 100 μM H2O2 can trigger a detectable peak shift. The present study paves a new and efficient way to extract chemical information from micro/nanospace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distance-dependent signal intensity in immunoassay by attenuated total reflection-surface enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy is demonstrated by controlling the distance of target proteins away from the enhancement substrate. Based on this optical near-field effect, sensitive detection of protein molecules with a detection limit of 0.6 nM and investigation of the kinetics and thermodynamics of protein-aptamer/antibody interactions can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catalytic sequential hydroboration of decaborane for the synthesis of poly(organodecaborane), with decaborane in the mainchain, is reported for the first time. Under a platinum catalytic system, poly(6-hexenyldecaborane) and poly(6-norbornenyldecaborane) are obtained with well-defined structures and a moderate yield. Thermogravimetric analysis demonstrates that the char yields are 73% and 82%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synthesized derivative Ru(bpy)3 covalently linked CNTs hybrid shows good electrochemical activity and ca. 17 times higher luminescence quantum efficiency than the adsorbed derivative Ru(bpy)3. The Ru-CNTs based ECL sensor exhibits high stability toward determination of TPA with a detection limit as low as 8.75 pM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]